The invention relates to an apparatus for dispensing fluent matter, and more particularly, to a hopper and vehicle having a hydraulically driven apparatus to dispense fluent matter from the vehicle into individual receptacles.
Deformable receptacles containing fluent matter have been found to be effective in the formation of permanent or temporary barricades for preventing the passage of liquid therethrough. In particular, bags filled with sand or other substantially fluent material are used extensively to obstruct the flow of water and thereby protect property from potential water damage during a flood. Sandbags may also be used for a number of other applications, including for barricades at construction sites, for riot control, and for military fortification.
Filling such receptacles manually, however, is slow and difficult work, and is generally accomplished by one person holding a receptacle in an open position while a second person repeatedly shovels or otherwise carries fluent matter from a bulk source through the opening of the receptacle until the receptacle is appropriately filled. Relatively efficient two-person teams generally require about twenty to thirty seconds using such manual techniques to fill a single bag with approximately thirty pounds of fluent matter. Sandbags, however, are often demanded in large quantities and in emergency situations where time is of the essence. Thus, it is desirable to expedite the preparation and delivery of sandbags in such situations.
The problem facing providers of sandbags is the prompt and efficient delivery of sandbags to the application site. Obviously, a bulk source of fluent matter must be present at the site where the sandbags are to be filled. Thus, the sandbags must either be filled at a location remote from where the sandbags are to be applied or a bulk source of fluent matter must be transported to the application site. There are numerous advantages of the latter method with respect to the former. First, it is generally not known prior to arriving at the application site how many sandbags will be required. Thus, if one is required to remotely fill the sandbags, then it is likely that either too many or too few sandbags will be prepared. Obviously, if too many sandbags are prepared, one risks that the additional time required to prepare the extra sandbags will permit an emergency situation to worsen. Alternatively, if too few sandbags are prepared, one risks not being able to adequately address the emergency situation.
Another disadvantage of preparing sandbags at a location remote from the application site is that, once prepared, the sandbags must be transported to the application site. It generally requires considerable manpower to load and unload vehicles for transporting sandbags from a remote location to an application site. Thus, in order to reduce required manpower, it is desirable to fill the required sandbags very proximately to, or preferably at, the application site.
The difficulty with on-site filling is that it is usually manually performed and very arduous. Furthermore, one must transport a bulk quantity of fluent matter to the application site. In order to fill bags mechanically on-site, one must provide power to operate the filling apparatus. This has proven to be very difficult.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,417,261, issued to Kanzler et al., discloses a stand-alone filling apparatus designed to reduce the manpower needed to fill sandbags. A difficulty with such an apparatus, however, is that it would be difficult to transport it to an application site, particularly if heavy bulk fluent matter were already contained in the apparatus. Thus, such an apparatus is likely to be subject to all the remote-filling disadvantages discussed above. Furthermore, manufacturing the disclosed sandbag-filling apparatus would be quite expensive.
Others have made efforts at transportable sandbag-filling apparatus, but these efforts also have had significant disadvantages. Specifically, U.S. Pat. No. 3,552,346, issued to Garden, teaches a bagging attachment for the rear of a dump truck. The Garden patent requires the use of a hydraulic lift for raising the dump truck onto an angle so that the fluent matter therein may be received into a vibrating hopper. The disclosure of the power sources for the lift and vibrator is limited, however, and the patent indicates that multiple external power sources, such as air-cooled engines, could be needed. Furthermore, using such apparatus it would be difficult to closely regulate the amount of matter being vibrated into the bags.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,044,921, issued to Caverly, employs an external power plant comprising an internal combustion engine connected to an appropriate transmission to drive a power shaft that is mounted on appropriately located bearings attached to a support stand, and an electrically actuated drive clutch is mounted to the power shaft for driving a canvas belt. It is believed that such a means for powering a sandbag-filling apparatus is completely impractical and would be prohibitively expensive, both to construct and to maintain with proper fuel. Furthermore, it is believed that the canvas belt would be likely to become jammed by larger particulates within the fluent matter.